Beam forming refers to a technique of shaping an antenna gain pattern to improve communications using the antenna. In particular, beam forming refers to techniques for selecting complex weight coefficients (“weights”) for antenna feed elements in a multi-element antenna. Signals to be transmitted from the antenna elements are multiplied by respective weights prior to transmission. Signals received by the antenna elements are multiplied by respective weights before being combined for processing.
Beam forming techniques have been applied to many modern mobile satellite systems (MSS). With multiple transmitting and receiving antenna feed elements, a satellite beam former forms a plurality of service area spot-beams (or cells) in both the forward link and the reverse link by using advanced antenna array signal processing. Beam forming can increase the average signal to noise and/or signal to interference ratio by focusing energy into desired directions in either the forward link or the reverse link. By estimating the response of each antenna element to a given user or a given location, and possible interference signals, a satellite/gateway can combine the elements with weights obtained as a function of each element response to improve the average desired signal and reduce other components, whether noise, interference or both. The spot-beams may be, for example, either fixed to an area or adaptive to particular users and/or interference environments depending, for example, on application scenarios and/or design considerations.